According to a an eMarketer report published earlier this year, nearly 38.9 million viewers in the US would have streamed a video program at least once a month this year using Roku. The number of users for Roku are estimated to have grown 19% over the year this year. Alphabet’s Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV are close competitors with Chromecast expected at 36.9 million users and Amazon at 35.8 million users. Recently, Roku (Nasdaq: ROKU), a Billion Dollar Unicorn club member, went public. It has had a good run so far.

Roku’s Offerings

San Francisco-based Roku was founded in 2002 by Anthony Wood, the inventor of the digital video recorder (DVR) who is also a serial entrepreneur. Prior to setting up Roku, Anthony had founded ReplayTV, which was sold to DirecTV and iband, Inc., which was sold to Macromedia Dreamweaver.

Roku became a pioneer in streaming to the TV. As of June 2017, Roku had 15.1 million active accounts and streamed more than 6.7 billion hours. The number of accounts is significantly different from eMarketer’s estimates, because eMarketer reported the number of users per platform and not the number of subscribers. Overall, the hours viewed through Roku have grown 62% over the six-month period ended June.

Roku acts as a cable TV substitute for many consumers and allows them a wider choice and a personalized content selection. Roku offers both ad-supported and subscription-based channels. Ad-supported channels include CBS News, Crackle, The CW, and Vice. Subscription channels include HBO Now, Hulu, Netflix, DirecTV Now, Sling TV, and Sony PlayStation Vue. Additionally, users can also stream other on-demand videos through Amazon Video, Google Play, and Vudu.

Roku’s Financials

Roku earns revenues through the sale of its device and in the form of advertising and subscription services on its platform. Revenues have grown significantly over the past few years. Fiscal 2016 revenues grew 25% to $398.6 million.